Ep. 2 - Esports at the Olympics, Culture and more APAC news

[00:00:01] Speaker A: All right. Hello, and welcome to episode two of an esports news talk is probably what we're going with. I'm your host, weapon, and I'm joined by my co host, Max. Max, how you doing? [00:00:13] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, it's been a hot minute since last time we were here. Things have changed. I'm in a new house. I'm following new sports and new esports as well, and it's different and doing. [00:00:26] Speaker A: New stuff behind the scene, which is what we're going to talk about in a bit, and I'm keen to get into it. Yeah, it has been a bit of a hot minute. Busy lives we lead, but today we are going to be talking about the people behind the scenes, and no better person to speak to than our good friend Tom. Tom, who are you? [00:00:42] Speaker C: Hello, hello, hello, everybody, and how you doing? For those of you who have kind of seen Max and weapon on the qut cast, I'm Tom. You may have seen me on some of the qut stuff with them before, but I am one of the production staff, tournament admins, people behind the scenes of a lot of stuff that these guys do with Qut, and a lot of different things that happen within esports around the entire environment. [00:01:11] Speaker A: For sure. And now the question I need to ask you, and this, I will apologize to the audience. Tom's operating with a very scuffed setup. He's not at home. So the question that needs to be asked, Tom, is, where can esports get you? Because your role, you're the producer, and you're in a pretty cool place right now. [00:01:29] Speaker C: Yeah, so I've done a couple of different talks about this at high school events, things like that, and a lot of people don't kind of look at esports in the same lens that they look at traditional sport. If you look at traditional sport, you would see your sports broadcast that have full news crews, full production crews, producers, commentary, an entire different separate team for people who are just trying to entertain the crowd, a different emcee. And that doesn't happen as often in esports. It's starting to head that way with some of the larger events, but working in esports and doing all the stuff within gaming production can actually get you towards that traditional sport environment. I've been very lucky this year. I'm at a scuffed setup because I'm currently actually in a hotel room in France working on some of the live entertainment and live sport for people in the grandstands of the Olympics. So myself and another former producer from QUt both put in applications to come over here and, yeah, we're currently working on one of the largest scale sporting events in the world, being able to do stuff that we love through sport production, through learning different things through a background in esports. [00:02:52] Speaker B: I just find it so funny. Obviously, weapon, and I know where you are ahead of time, just waiting for you to drop. Yeah, I'm at the Olympics. [00:02:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, that's the part I wanted to. That's cool. I had some words about the Olympics on Twitter. The Olympics is cool, but, like, the fact that you're there and you got there through esports, that's the bomb we wanted you to drop. [00:03:13] Speaker C: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of things within esport production that people just don't even realize are there. Like, you look at things like the LEC, LCs, LCK, lPL within the League of Legends scene, and you have makeup artists, you have camera ops, you have people who actually sit there and write the stories. You have the journalists who, you know, look up all of the stats and all the things behind the scenes that then you have your commentary team go after. And it's one thing that I'm seeing here here is the teams work almost the exact same way between traditional sports and esport. It's just the medium that they're presenting through is a little different, and the mediums that they're talking about is very, very different. [00:03:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, this is classic Tom, by the way. So, like, I've known Tom for a couple of years working on the ODT. Max has known Tom for longer. So dude has not talked about himself, like, for the past, like, four minutes of even recording. So what's the job you're actually doing at the Olympics? Like, how does it relate to what you're doing? Qut. [00:04:19] Speaker C: So what I'm doing is I am essentially a graphics operator for the in venue screens and graphics that go up to people who have paid tickets to come see these events. I have a system that I use to basically queue up graphics, queue up videos. I work with a producer timing how long certain video content might be, what it's left. I'll make calls to other members of the team on, you know, hey, my video is going out in about 10 seconds. You may. You need to put your audio in things like that. And then we work in a team the same way that you would see in a newsroom or even behind the scenes, like a theatre show or production, to entertain the crowd. [00:05:09] Speaker A: Which is your background? [00:05:11] Speaker C: Yes, which is my background. So my background is in initially, as in theatre, been doing theater work since I was very young, I started on stage doing different dance and performing arts and then moved kind of backstage towards my mid to late teenage years, working with my local theatre in Toowoomba, which is where I'm from. And then, yeah, once I kind of moved to uni, I started working at Le Bois, which is one of the theatres on the Calvin Grove Qut campus, worked there for a little bit, and then moved over towards the QUT esports side of working with our production staff, working with our commentary team, working with our tournament organization in order to start running our tournaments and kind of producing some of the segments and producing the content and show calling on the night, saying which graphics are going in what segments we want to run if we're behind, trying to figure out what to cut to make sure that we can start our games on time. All of that kind of stuff is what my job that we have kind of entails. Oh, yeah, it's a fun job. It's an important job, for sure. But it can be. It can be really interesting. When you run into unexpected things, there's always this element of the uninspected in any sort of live production, whether it be theater or a broadcast or something like that, where you'll just have things that happen. You'll have somebody not be able to make it to a game time for one reason or another. An interesting one that's happened recently here in Paris was all of the skateboarding athletes who were going to their gold medal event. Their bus broke down in the middle of Paris. So what you get is a whole bunch of. [00:07:01] Speaker A: Oh, damn. [00:07:02] Speaker B: Was this event. [00:07:04] Speaker C: No. Oh, yes. This was just before the women's van. But what you got. [00:07:07] Speaker A: Okay. The thing about that situation, though, is that they've literally got transportation with them. [00:07:13] Speaker C: Well, that's what they all did. They all just grabbed their boards, put them on the ground, and did the last two k boards to warm up. Yeah, so there was. There was other athletes on that bus going to other events as well, but they. They literally. Yeah, they literally just, like, put their boards on the ground, started going with them for the last two days to warm up while they were going to the arena, and they. Yeah, like, the police had to start chasing after them to try to keep people away from them. [00:07:35] Speaker A: It's amazing. [00:07:35] Speaker C: Kind of funny, but, yeah, there's always an element. [00:07:39] Speaker B: Would get chased by the police. [00:07:42] Speaker C: Well, it's more. It's more. Yeah, it's more just to make sure everyone's okay and all the athletes make it to the village. It wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't for anything like they knew they were and everything. We all have, uh, accreditation and everything that we have to wear everywhere so we can get into our venues. [00:07:55] Speaker A: Of course, yeah. [00:07:59] Speaker B: Were you working the skateboarding? I thought you were predominantly with the. [00:08:03] Speaker C: No, no, no. So I am currently with the rowing at a venue about an hour train ride outside of the center of Paris. And then I'm also working for the Paralympics, doing the swimming for the Paralympics. So that'll be. I finished up next. We're recording this on a Monday. I finish up in about a week and a bit on, like, a Wednesday, the following week to when we're recording this, not sure when the guys release it, but people can figure out time. [00:08:37] Speaker A: That should be pretty soon. [00:08:38] Speaker C: And then I have about a ten day break before I go into the Paralympics. So, yeah. [00:08:45] Speaker B: I guess, like, then the next obvious question, even though I know what your answer is going to be, though. But, like, obviously, this is an esports focused show, and esports is what it's about. But when you wind up at a gig with the prestige and as the Olympics, and it is a traditional sporting event, like, are you even going to want to come back to esports after all this? Like. [00:09:08] Speaker C: I am. [00:09:09] Speaker A: I'm. [00:09:10] Speaker C: Yeah, it's interesting to talk about that kind of stuff, because when you have people of all different minds, you have people who are the minds of a gig's a gig. They'll come to anything. Not really caring what it is you have. People of the minds of esports is a. You know, it doesn't necessarily have the prestige. I don't want to do it because it's not one of the top things for me. Esport is my passion. It's the entire reason I went to the university that I went to. It's the reason I have certain relationships with friends and family that otherwise I wouldn't be able to make any sort of electronic or gaming or anything like that has become such a big part of who I am and how I kind of moved forward past a lot of stuff that happened early on in my life that I wouldn't want to drop it for the world. You could offer me millions of dollars to go do something else, and I would sit there bored out of my brain because I didn't get to do the stuff that I love, which is what I do for QUt, which is what I'd love to keep doing for LCO or one of those larger scale broadcasts within the esports scene, no matter what game it was. Doesn't necessarily have to be League of Legends, which is my poison of choice. But, yeah, I'm. It's something that I always come back to is esport as just a culture in general has always been so accepting to me. You know, you hear about the toxicity and stuff like that, but once you actually sit everybody in a room playing together, talking about it together, doing things together, it has just as much camaraderie, teamwork, as any other traditional sport. And that's something that I've always loved about esport and any sort of gaming stuff in general. [00:10:57] Speaker A: How have you kind of found, like. Like, have you worked with many of the athletes directly in your role? [00:11:05] Speaker C: Sadly, I haven't been able to work with many of the athletes directly. Like, I'm about. [00:11:11] Speaker A: You did kind of mention in the group chat you're also dealing with a lot of commentators, right? [00:11:16] Speaker C: Yeah. So my main job is I work with the commentators for our sport. So there's currently three commentators, a french speaking commentator, because obviously we're in french, and then two english speaking commentators who have kind of been rotating between our races. Um, one of the english speaking commentators, he's been doing world rowing events for twelve years now, very experienced in rowing. He. It's. It's not his primary job, it's his passion as well. And he comes back every time because it is his passion. Same with our other english commentator, our french commentator. He's a school teacher originally, and he's here because he just has this passion for rowing. And it's. It's great to see, even at the highest level, you talk about the prestige that you think about at the Olympics or a World cup or something like that. A lot of the time, commentators don't even necessarily need to be full time people. They just have the passion for the sport that they want to present and they come and do. They go above and beyond. I've seen them being. Doing eight, nine hour days, just sitting there doing their prep, doing all the things that they need to do to make sure they can tell the story of the race to people in the stands, whether it be people who already know the stories. There's a statistic that we've been talking about here that roughly 60% to 70% of people in the audience at an Olympic Games don't actually know the sport that they're necessarily going to see. They've bought tickets to go to an event at the Olympic Games because it has that prestige, it has that kind of draw to it, that as much as you're there to talk to, for my instance, they're rowing fans. You're also there to educate people on the sport. You're there to bring people into the storylines that, you know, if we relate it back to things that are happening in the LCO, it's kind of like us going to the PCF playoffs. You don't necessarily know that ground zero this year has been so dominant and team bliss, you know, faltering a little bit compared to what they were maybe last year, where they were seen as the cream of the crop. It's now ground zero taking that over. People in the PCs might not necessarily know that. So it's important to be able to bring that story in there and talk to the audience, explain who some of these athletes are, explain that they've been world championships before, maybe they've been to the Olympics before. They placed really well. They didn't place their role, but they're looking to fight back. Those kind of stories bring a crowd and an audience in to the experience with the players, and that's what any sort of broadcast or show needs. It's all the story that's presented in front of you, the story of the game, the story of the context around the game. And it comes to the people behind the scenes, the people organizing the event, the production staff, the people doing music, the people doing video, all of that, to be able to show the best story and the best experience for people to be entertained. [00:14:18] Speaker B: I do feel like in some aspects, that is something that does lack a bit when it comes to esports, and it's strange, and I'm not saying this just to pat myself on the back, but it is one of the things that I do try to stay cognizant of when casting a match is always like, spend the start of the game or start of the broadcast, whatever, going over the big storylines or the big players to look out for who's important, why, and all that, but that's not something I necessarily see often with some esports titles at their major events, because it feels like esports is so niche that, yeah, sometimes it is like you go in with expected knowledge and the talent and the casting team and the storylines are catered towards people who already come with like an almost barrier of entry. [00:15:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I feel like that was one of the big jumps from going from, like, community casts to even something like ODT where, like, when you're doing a community cast, the people watching are like the 50 players who are already in the tournament. So wasting time on the basics feels like it's an exercise in futility, but, like, yeah, you kind of have to do that. You have to set up the storylines, and that's like, it's a really big pivot. [00:15:31] Speaker B: I just wish that, like, I don't know, we had more opportunity to do that. I'm going to throw this one to Rocket League because, again, I've always hammered on how I feel like Rocket League is the game with that global appeal that should be able to be broadcast to everyone. I just wish that, like, yeah, sometimes we were directed or like, you know, maybe other people I'm working with sawed in the same way I did, where, yes, we should spend, you know, the first three minutes of game one reiterating, sort of, here's the key players and why. And, like that. Because that's the way how I like to present. That's the way how I like to storytell what I'm doing, commentating. And I guess it's one of the reasons why I do have my eyes on traditional sports these days and wanting to make that transition. [00:16:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's like, the first, I remember, like, the first RF LAN event. Like, I got, like, feedback because I was the only person who did prep and the only person who was like, okay, so, like, what's the narrative here? And then, like, there was some other people, like, whenever I see a new caster, if they talk about storylines, I'm like, okay, this person gets it. [00:16:29] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's a, it's a really big thing within all of esport right now is obviously, you look at eastern countries where the barrier of entry is lower because they have so much more, so many more players that are interested when it comes to places like Os, places like na less so now in Europe. Europe starting to fall behind it. It's that barrier for entry that's really stopping a sport from blowing up the way that a lot of traditional sports or even new traditional sports work. So something like breakdancing, which will just make it Olympic debut later this week. Not necessarily something people watch, but it's something that, you know, is a newer sport has been going for a little bit. It's cool. And then as it's cool, it's entertaining, the same way that esports have been. Like, people just think it's, oh, you're just watching somebody play a video game. Well, video games are graphically really nice to look at. There's some really cool things, and if you understand what's happening in the actual game in front of you, you start to connect to it more. I very often didn't watch rugby, NRL or anything like that when I was younger until I started to get interested in State of Origins, things like that in my early teens. And once I started to actually play some touch football and stuff like that in high school, I started understanding the rules and actually started to connect to the sport more because I knew the basics. I could understand how much effort it took to do what some of these people were doing. I know even within my own family, I've had my siblings and my parents sit down to watch World's League of Legends matches with me. And once they start to understand the objectives, understand some of the champions involved, understand some of the prep that the teams do around their draft and things like that, it just leads to that extra appreciation for the sport itself. And once you have that appreciation for the sport, you can become a fan of it. It's that appreciation and the education of audiences that I think a lot of sports broadcast is missing to really try to find their audience and build their audience so it's not just the people who already play or, you know, the 50 players who are playing that week. Once you kind of can build your audience into people who maybe don't understand what's happening, then you can really start to find what works for non traditional esports audiences, if that makes sense. People who don't play games. [00:19:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:10] Speaker B: I agree with that. And just to piggyback on it, though, I still believe that some titles are always going to be intrinsically better than others for it. And I know you're the League of Legends guy here, Tom, and even more so weapon. I still am not sure that's the game you want to go to because, like, the barrier to get the basic understanding, even understand what's happening on the screen, I'd like says so much higher compared to, like, games like Rocket League or Trackmania or something like that. Like, and I feel, I really wish that, like, those were the titles that were getting more of, like, the push on mainstream channels. Like, I I want to see the return of Rocket League on SBS and not at some, like, dead midnight or 01:00 a.m. spot. [00:19:50] Speaker A: Yeah, like, it would just make the most sense. I can't disagree with that. I mean, like, on the subject of it and, like, it's kind of topical because, you know, Olympics and Tom's here, I don't know if you guys saw the announcement, but the IOC, they confirmed that there's going to be esports Olympics. They didn't really give much more details than that. And, like, I have a take on this, and it's like, like esports. I said this on Twitter. I'm probably just going to, like, say it like, literally verbatim. It's like, there's always been this sense in, like, the esports scene that, like, we're fighting for a sense of, like, legitimacy. But then I think about, like, you know, sort of a couple of years ago, like, pre Covid, when the LCS was filling stadiums, and it still kind of can do that. And, like, rocket league is. Is just popping off and, like, we're seeing success in our own way. We're selling out stadiums. We're doing all this cool stuff in grassroots from time to time, and OC is building in that regard as well. And it's like, I just kind of feel like it's cool, but I want esports to build its own thing and not be part of this bigger sort of, like, entity that's like the. The Olympics. It's cool that it's happening. It's just like I'm. I don't know, I just. It feels, to me, it feels just antithetical to what esports has been for the past few years. [00:21:05] Speaker B: I don't know. I don't know if I agree. I'm gonna go the other way and be like. I feel it's. I mean, it's. I'm just gonna go the most basic route with this. More eye is more better and any sort of way to get out there. I think, you know, we shouldn't be trying to high road something like the Olympics would be like that for that. I fully agree. [00:21:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:27] Speaker B: I don't think esports is in a position to do that. And, like, I don't know. I think, you know, the fact that, again, the Olympics are looking at esports is a testament to, like, of its legitimacy and, like, where it is going in these situations. So I say let's embrace it. Now, that said, if we get another tic tac bow situation like games, then I'm gonna have some more problems, because. [00:21:49] Speaker A: I think, yeah, yeah, they have confirmed, but I sounds like it's gonna be major titles. [00:21:55] Speaker C: Well, yeah, I've been hearing a bit about it here, and I've read some different things on Twitter and on LinkedIn and stuff, but I think what the biggest thing with it is is I somewhat am in the middle of both of you listening to how some of the commentators and even how some other staff here talk about what the Olympics means, right. The Olympics is the world stage, and you get that 70% of the audience who doesn't necessarily follow the sport, but it can introduce them. Right. And then afterwards they go, oh, that was cool. Sorry. Like, it introduces them to the sport, and afterwards they can go, that was really cool. I'm going to start to follow that sport more, and I think that's maybe that participate or maybe participate. Yeah. And I think that's something that. Something like an esport Olympics with maybe not every major title under the sun, but just a couple of the major titles and even some sport tech kind of things mixed in will be able to do. It brings eyes that wouldn't have really thought about looking towards the genre, towards the actual side of esports. And once they start looking is when they start to kind of show themselves. Oh, cool. I actually really enjoy this. I might go try picking up that game, or I might just start watching more. I think Rocket League is definitely something that, if they're going to do something, make a partnership with Epic and put that game on there, because it's really easy for viewers to understand it is soccer with cars. [00:23:35] Speaker A: Rocket league. Yeah. Rocket League is the lowest barrier to entry as a viewer, highest barrier to entry, just mechanically, as a player, to. [00:23:44] Speaker B: Get to that highest reason why it's so good. [00:23:49] Speaker C: Even stuff like your fighting games and stuff like that, very low bar, like barrier of entry, it's like it's in basics. It's just a boxing match with abilities and stuff like that. Sometimes that's how you explain it to somebody who's never seen a fighting game before. Then they start to see it, and then when they start to actually watch the combos and stuff like that and realize how mechanical it can be to be that high level at some of the games that would appear at your Evos and stuff like that. Yeah. The same way you view some of these athletes. Like, I've been watching rowing all week. I understand the technique. I haven't got in a boat once to try it, and I know the moment that I get in the boat, I'm going to end up capsized 100%. Because I've seen these people train. I've seen how their body's built. I've seen how much it can matter. Even today, we saw somebody at the top of their form make a mistake, and it cost them a race. They were eliminated for it. That can happen in esports. You can have, you know, not to slam on the LEC. I'm in Europe right now. The only time zone that I can really watch is the LeC. Noah Israel into the middle of a teamfight and dying and losing. You know, the LEC finals, the fanatic. Ah, things like that happen in traditional sport. It's, it's the same storylines, the same mediums at a base level that we can touch on. It's just that barrier to entry which we really need to lower or find a way to reach to larger audiences before esport will really start to become more accepted by international communities. That right now see it as you're just watching people play games. [00:25:24] Speaker B: I still think it's a time thing, like, and it could even be like a generational type thing. Because another reason why traditional sports is so relatable is because, yeah, okay, not everybody is playing, you know, rugby right now. Like, especially a lot of the audience, but that audience, you know, the group of like, twelve dudes in their fifties at the pub watching the game. Well, maybe 30 years ago, they were the ones playing it. And I think once, you know, the people who grew up playing these games get a bit older, then maybe it will start to come through that way. But that's one way of looking at it. I just went back to the Olympics real, real quick. Just from my understanding, though, the esports is its own separate Olympics. Like, it's not different events. That's not gonna break it into the mainstream. Unfortunately, that's not gonna be what does it. It has to be alongside these other sporting events. Otherwise it's still just gonna be seen as sort of like a niche novelty thing that people are not really gonna tune into. [00:26:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it feels like they're being very cautious about it. It's. It's a cool opportunity. I, like, I actually, I want to go on to something I put on the run sheet because I think it's a really fun topic conversation. Like, we just had the stupid world cup and where we don't have to talk about that, but, like, let's assume, right, it's major titles for this thing, and it's. It's happening. We know it's happening. Like team oce, who you got? [00:26:44] Speaker B: Oh, for what game? [00:26:45] Speaker A: Uh, for. Let's go League of Legends first. Oh, all right, Max, you can do Rocket League. It's. [00:26:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:26:52] Speaker A: You. [00:26:52] Speaker B: I'll leave League of Legends. You guys leave me Rocket League. [00:26:54] Speaker C: All right. [00:26:55] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. What do you got? Who you got? Is it just all power all the time? [00:26:59] Speaker B: Uh oh, oh, you want me to go right now? [00:27:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:02] Speaker B: Okay, so, I mean, I don't want to cut torso. I really don't. [00:27:10] Speaker A: Why, when you start like that, why? Who's more consistent than torsos then? [00:27:19] Speaker B: Oh, like the other two people on that team fever. [00:27:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like, okay, like, what does torsos do in that team? Like, he. He's obviously there for a reason, right? [00:27:31] Speaker B: Yeah. So torsos is there to, um, not to drop a Harry Potter reference. [00:27:38] Speaker A: Okay. [00:27:39] Speaker C: But. [00:27:39] Speaker B: But, you know, like, quidditch, the. The bludger people, the guys with the bats, you just go around. Yeah, the balls and, like, the other people stuff. Yeah, kind of. Like, yes, he sometimes scores, and yes, he still has his big moments, but for the most part, that's kind of what he's doing. He's kind of this disruptive force. He's the demo attacking half, which is the antithesis of how he used to play, like, three years ago. It's just kind of the role he slot into on power. Yeah, but I think there are other players that I would love to see on that lineup and see what they could do. I mean, like, Anfis back on that team would still be pretty exciting. I still rate fiber incredibly highly. I think he would be another one, depending on playstyles, how they would fit. But it's pretty hard to go and say, yeah, that team that went undefeated in Australia, let's. Let's break that apart now. [00:28:32] Speaker A: So, yeah, you could probably make the argument that, like, pioneers just underperformed, and maybe you do Chuck, one of those guys on there. [00:28:38] Speaker B: Well, that's what I was saying. Like, maybe Amphis. But, I mean, Amphis was on power, and then now he's on Pioneers. And since he's left, power hasn't lost. So make it that what you will. [00:28:50] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, League of Legends. Tom, who's the picks? [00:28:56] Speaker C: I'm gonna. I'm gonna go full. Full roster here. Right? Coaching staff is spawn. [00:29:01] Speaker A: Full roster? Oh, yeah, yeah. Coaching stuff is good. [00:29:03] Speaker C: It just has to be spawned. Right? Current. [00:29:06] Speaker A: There's no other choice. Maybe. Who's the guy who's in Europe coaching Sk as well? [00:29:15] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:29:16] Speaker A: To be a pro player. Yeah. Get him as, like, assistant coach. [00:29:19] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I see it. I see it. Let's start with support. Ayla, currently playing for 100 thieves. Right? [00:29:29] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. [00:29:29] Speaker C: Top lane, the fudge factor. C nine fan here. Of course. It's obviously. [00:29:36] Speaker A: Honestly. [00:29:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I think. I think ADC's hard. I think it's still FBI, but he hasn't played against any, like, Os ADC's in a long time. [00:29:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I have thoughts on this one, but please finish. [00:29:52] Speaker C: And then, like, shornfire jungle. I think it either needs to be, like, shown fire or Kevy, but I think it's I think it's shown fire. And then I guess, like, just for the synergy right now, like, if they were competing right now, um, Fido, just because, you know, he's playing mid lane with shirtfire right now, ground zero is currently. [00:30:14] Speaker A: Okay. [00:30:16] Speaker C: Currently in the lead. Like, yeah, I think that's the team. I think. I think that's the australian league legends team right now. If I was to send something. [00:30:24] Speaker A: Okay. [00:30:25] Speaker B: Do we want you New Zealand teams? [00:30:27] Speaker A: Oh, New Zealand teams. Didn't even think about that. Oh, yeah. New Zealand Rocket league. I want to hear it. [00:30:35] Speaker B: All right. Caleb from Gremlins. [00:30:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Easy. [00:30:39] Speaker B: Laxen from ground zero. [00:30:40] Speaker C: Oh. [00:30:41] Speaker B: And I think based on the form that I've seen, like, from little bits in the offseason, I'd be. I'd put viz on there. He's like generic random bubble scene teams, but I think viz would get that third spot. Unless Commie has just been playing while not on a team, in which case we break him out of retirement. Throw him in there. [00:31:01] Speaker A: Okay. Actually, who is the third man? Sorry, I didn't. This viz, not a player I've heard of. Need to keep an eye out for him. [00:31:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Bubble scene. Bubble scene player. He's been doing pretty good in the offseason, but, like, yeah, after. After Caleb and lax, it, like, look. [00:31:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:14] Speaker B: As much as I'd love to see Kenny Salmon bring it back. Yeah, probably not. [00:31:19] Speaker A: We. I have to think about a New Zealand team, but, like, for League of Legends, I'm pretty much looking at the same people. But I think for mid, it's kiss a and then for ad carry, I'm actually just gonna go Limus because, like, lumas is the best player in OC right now and it's not even close. And my. If I was gonna pick a sub and it wasn't gonna be FBI, the other pick that I would go for is actually sticks, which sounds insane. But that guy is nine. [00:31:48] Speaker C: He's had some one v. Nine performances from the LCO that I have been watching. [00:31:52] Speaker A: Like, yeah, just. [00:31:53] Speaker C: Just his personality. If you're gonna go to some international stage, you want somebody with personality to be able to personality as well. [00:32:01] Speaker A: And like, he's just. Yeah, and he's just like a really level headed dude. Like, he said he knows the game really well. He can't sing the praise of the sticks enough. He's a nice dude, but, like, yeah, really, like, just knows his. And, like, I feel like he would almost be like that third coach. Right? Like, you don't want to coach on the team, but, like, he's someone who knows how the game works, like, really fundamentally and, like, can support the other players in the. In the team in doing that, even if he's not necessarily playing. Yeah. What I want to know, like, I'm thinking about new. New Zealand. I was looking at who you got here. [00:32:40] Speaker C: Are we. Are we pulling people out of retirement? If not, we're struggling. [00:32:46] Speaker B: I am absolutely. Call me onto my Rocket League team. [00:32:49] Speaker A: How scuffed is the pull out of retirement thing happening here? [00:32:54] Speaker C: Well, I think we run out of players. I don't think we could fit every role currently active. [00:33:00] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:33:01] Speaker B: If you're from New Zealand right now and this, like, Olympic event is coming up and you want to get on that team, there's some open spots. [00:33:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Because we know, like, why not? Is obvious. Raise is like a slam dunk. Like that. He goes, why not? Great question. [00:33:16] Speaker C: Gbmde. [00:33:18] Speaker A: Uh, GBN is really. [00:33:21] Speaker C: Get a better name. Is. [00:33:21] Speaker A: Okay. [00:33:22] Speaker C: It's New Zealand. Yeah. [00:33:23] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Gabin gave in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's. He probably goes on there. Surely there's, like, not to. Not to like. [00:33:34] Speaker C: Kangas ADC is New Zealand as well. [00:33:38] Speaker A: Wait, where's Kangas ADC? [00:33:41] Speaker C: Oh, never mind. Lost. Lost is New Zealand. [00:33:43] Speaker A: Yeah. No, yeah, lost easy. [00:33:45] Speaker C: Lost. Yeah. Losses in. And then we just need a top lane, art. So, uh, chippies. Chippy. Chippy's the top laner. There we go. [00:33:52] Speaker A: Chippies. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, perfect. Wait, what? [00:33:54] Speaker C: There we go. That's a New Zealand roster. We locked it in there. [00:33:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I like it. [00:33:59] Speaker C: According to lore fandom. According to lore fandom, they're all born in New Zealand, so I'll take it from there. [00:34:05] Speaker A: Yeah. I actually thought bio was from New Zealand, but he's. He's not. He's. No, I guess his family's from New Zealand. Like, what? Charlie's buyer. [00:34:16] Speaker B: Also, um, I just want to double down again. I know we're going back to the rocket. [00:34:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:34:21] Speaker B: No, I can't not put torso. See, he's the. [00:34:24] Speaker A: Okay, he's the OC. [00:34:25] Speaker B: He has to be like the sub or the captain or the mascot. Like, he has to be on there. Like. So I'm just sending power. We know they're good. [00:34:37] Speaker A: Just, I mean, what are the sports would be. What other games would be represented? Because I think it's CS go. Yeah, that's easy. [00:34:45] Speaker C: Pretty much all. I don't think CS go would make it. I think just wording. I think the wording within CS go is just. [00:34:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:56] Speaker A: Oh, cs two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you even think CS two goes because it's like, it's. It's weird on an international stage because it's like, basically a game where you're doing gun violence. We've had to consider that a lot when we're doing events for space jump. Like, we have to consider the venues we're at. So it kind of makes it a bit questionable. [00:35:16] Speaker B: I mean, look, all I'm going to say is that, Tom, I'm willing to hear what you think of this one, but the esports Safety Commission here in Australia has valorant as a 13 plus game and Rocket league as an 18 plus game. [00:35:30] Speaker A: Hold up. [00:35:32] Speaker C: Wait, that's interesting. [00:35:33] Speaker A: They took one look at quick chat. [00:35:38] Speaker B: I'm convinced it was a mistake, but, like, that's actually what I've seen right now. So if you're going to say, uh oh, these games are too violent. One in Rocket league, that 18 plus. Whoa. [00:35:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, I think CS go can be made less violent. There's like paintball mode and stuff if you really want to go there. So, I mean, it could be doable. [00:35:59] Speaker C: I think the obvious answer, if you're looking for a. A shooter like Riot made Valorant to be more advertiser friendly, be more easier to broadcast and work with, then CS was like, CS GO was not CS two, necessarily, but CS GO. So it might lean towards that way, but if you're gonna do shooting, like, hurts me to say it would just. I'm not an enjoyer of this game at all. Fortnight is already accepted and recognized by the IOC. Like, and it is very kid friendly. It was at the last international esport. [00:36:40] Speaker B: Event, so, yeah, they did the shooting. [00:36:43] Speaker C: Yeah. So if it's because, like, that's the other thing as well, is it'll be interesting to see what regulations there are. This was an article that I was reading today, actually, around esport. Olympic stuff is because they're all private ecosystems, the games, like, the games company owner, the deals that would have to be made and all that kind of stuff, might actually lean very heavily on what games can be and what companies are willing to work with the IOC because they will have a lot of regulation coming in, that games will have to follow around cheating, around how tournaments are organized, around how qualifiers are organized. All of that kind of stuff will be taken into consideration. Like, there's so much that goes into the organization and the results and all of that kind of stuff that people don't necessarily see, even at QUT, the way that we run our tournaments is set towards the AI's guidelines. On how to run tournaments, which means that we have a lot more of a rigorous australian institute of sport. Okay. It means we have a lot more of a rigorous process than some other tournaments that even I've been a part of as a player before where it was kind of just you and your five mates register. You jump in almost immediately that night and you can kind of get away with skirting the rules a little bit on this pic here or this thing here. It's a lot harder to do that once you start having those larger organizations and more restrictions around how important some of these results based programs can be. So be interesting to see what happens in the esport Olympic space with that. [00:38:26] Speaker A: Yeah. This will play into our next subject, which we're going to touch on. But like, I. I just want to quickly say that I think if. If cs two isn't represented at like a. An Olympic games, it's meant to be for every country in the world to compete. It would feel a bit off to me because like, it's been the esport. It'd be kind of the same with like Starcraft. Like Starcraft is just in the esport for so long and maybe that's going to be supplanted by Stormgate, like real. [00:38:54] Speaker B: Soon comes out of the Olympics. Let's just. Just give Korea a free gold medal. [00:39:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. They at this point don't even run the event. Just give it to them. But I mean, actually, no. The last few major winners have been not korean, like not for brood war. Oh, not for brood war. But like also for StarCraft two. You got like, yeah, Starcraft two. [00:39:14] Speaker B: It's been a little bit more variancey, but now Broodwell Warren, very much. [00:39:18] Speaker A: But like, it's like two games that feel like they're very odd fits for such an international like big event, but they just like, it feels like they have to be there. [00:39:26] Speaker B: I'm being. I. Starcraft. This is my hot take. Maybe, but Starcraft for me is a lot easier to follow than cs. [00:39:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Because you only have to watch like two minutes of it. Two workers die, games over. Someone scoops. [00:39:40] Speaker B: Yeah, or, or it goes like 25 minutes and it just turns like this complete, chaotic, like action movie scene, which is awesome. [00:39:47] Speaker A: And the casters stop casting. They just sit back and go, yeah, stuff's happening. We're past the pale of what we. [00:39:54] Speaker B: Know, but that's Starcraft. To brood war is a lot. I don't know. A brood war for me that is still the pinnacle of Starcraft and we need that and I know it will never happen. But we need brood war at the Olympics. Yeah, the actual Olympics. It should go right. Like, you know, during gymnastics, just replace. Replace rhythm gymnastics with Starcraft. [00:40:16] Speaker A: Rude war with stock. Like. But, like, if we're going to replace it with gymnastics, it has to be like, a pure, like, because gymnastics. So it's such a pure expression of, like, human abilities, right? Yeah, yeah. Rhythm gymnastics. Right. So I think the. The replacement for StarCraft, if we're going to replace rhythm gymnastics with StarCraft, what you're going to be doing is doing, like, one of those micro pro trainers. [00:40:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:40:38] Speaker A: You just, like, purely. It's like aim trainer, right? Just click on the dots. What's that? That rhythm game. [00:40:44] Speaker B: Oh, dosu. Osu. [00:40:46] Speaker A: Oh, so esports at Lelympics, please. [00:40:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I think StarCraft has more actions per minute than OSU. [00:40:52] Speaker A: Yeah, it probably does, actually, like, a lot more. [00:40:54] Speaker B: Like, that's just, that's why it's like. [00:40:56] Speaker C: I mean, jeez, athletes, guitar hero instead. [00:41:02] Speaker A: Of, oh, my God, fortnite one. [00:41:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:08] Speaker B: Okay. If we're gonna go down this road, um, just so people understand the reference, Tic Tac Bow was a commonwealth event, which was a mobile phone archery tic tac toe scam game. [00:41:22] Speaker A: You know. You know what we gotta do? We gotta find the person who went to the Commonwealth games for Tic tac Bo, get them on the show. Yeah, we gotta find out. [00:41:30] Speaker B: We gotta find the winner. [00:41:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, I mean, we can probably over. [00:41:34] Speaker B: Under that they installed the game, like, a week beforehand. [00:41:37] Speaker A: Yeah, probably. They just, like, they're just really good at mobile games, and we could probably, like, I don't know how you guys are feeling on the subject. We can probably move on. I kind of want to tie a bow on the, um, the whole, like, behind the scenes, uh, like, unsung heroes of the esports thing. And, like, ask Tom. Like, you're a person. You like esports. You don't necessarily want to cast. You're not a great player. Like, what do you do? How do you get into, like, not you personally. That came out. Wow, dude, I think. Dude, I see. I see your puffy. It's clean. No, like, I was gonna say you're a way better player than me. Look, okay, the hypothetical you who I'm referring to is all of these things. What, like, what does that person do to get into esports? And, like, what are the roles they can fill? That. So that sort of stuff. [00:42:33] Speaker C: The biggest thing that you can do is just find a part of it that you enjoy, whether it be you know, if you're really good at building relationships with players, building relationships with other people, tournament admins, they're required to have relationships and be able to, you know, people manage things like that. That's something that you might be able to do if you really have an eye for the creativity side. You could work in graphics, you could work as a camera operator in game and find some really beautiful shots. You can work vision, switching to, you know, change between what the actual audience is seeing. If it's something that you really are passionate about, you can find a way to bring it into the broadcast in some way, whether it be, you know, you really like to look at stats, you really like to organize like, you know, who's actually had the best performance and all that kind of stuff. I'm sure both of you as commentators would love if Qut had a dedicated stats person just to break down stats and give you spreadsheets or after spreadsheets of, hey, here's all the stats. This person's actually performing really well, but kind of on a, you know, middle of the pack team. That would be a storyline. [00:43:50] Speaker A: Yeah, can we quickly shout out Alex, because hydrogen is absolutely incredible. [00:44:00] Speaker C: Yeah, we have one of our. Well, he's actually here in France with me. He was working on an application. [00:44:07] Speaker A: Oh, nuts. [00:44:08] Speaker C: Yeah, he's working on an application that is really amazing when it comes to League of Legends currently, I know he wants to expand to past legal legends, but like League of Legends tournament broadcast and administration kind of wrapped into this one pack. It's really cool to see, but there's so much, there's so many different elements that you might not necessarily have thought about when it comes to working in any sort of broadcast, whether it be sport, broadcast, esport broadcast news or something like that, that you can definitely bring into places like qut. You can bring it into smaller broadcasts that might be doing community based stuff. You can try to reach out to them and say, hey, I'm really interested in doing this. Can I try out for a week, see what you think about me? And even if it's, you know, it might not be the first time that you try a gig that it works out. You can learn from that experience. You can come in. One of the people who are on our team that I absolutely adore when it comes to this is one of our camera ops, Kale. Within the first week, he had walked around to all of our casters asking for feedback on his spectating, asking for, hey, was this fight good? Would you rather me this. Would you rather me do that. And it's just the, you can see the passion that he has for spectating League of Legends and wanting to make sure that he's framing it the best way for the commentators to then give that story across to the audience. You can find the way to kind of. [00:45:32] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. [00:45:32] Speaker C: We gotta add what you enjoy, for sure. [00:45:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, dude, the, the people on that team who, like, have the passion, like, there's like a. Who is that? The dude who you kind of, you absolutely love? I think it's Josh. [00:45:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:45:48] Speaker A: When we were doing that segment for the finals. Yeah. And he just, like, he knew exactly what I was trying to achieve, but he also, like, wanted to do multiple takes to get it right. Like, get. Get the timing, get everything. And you're, like, you're getting feedback. It's so cool. And, like, we want people to come in with that energy because we don't want to have to do multiple jobs as casters, man. [00:46:09] Speaker B: We don't. [00:46:10] Speaker A: But we do know we kind of do. [00:46:12] Speaker C: Yeah. And, and, like, sometimes that comes with smaller scale. Like, you need to wear multiple hats when it gets to bigger scale. Sometimes you still need to wear multiple hats to work with multiple teams and stuff like that. But if you start small, start a community level and just work on the skills that you think you will need or the skills that they ask you to have and then start putting that into a cv. Start working on different things, start touching different pieces of tech, touching different games, understanding what it takes to actually give that story across to the audience, you could find yourself where I am working for one of the largest sporting events in the world on something that audiences see with such prestige and such, or just from me sitting there broadcasting video games and different skills that I've learned over the period of time that I've been doing that. [00:47:02] Speaker A: Just watching, letting people watch video. People to play video games, like you said. [00:47:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, it's cool as hell and just, like, a quick reminder, like, it. So the way that you've been buffering, by the way, Tom, you'd like. You probably haven't been able to hear it because you literally talking, but, like, we get buffering every now and then because you're literally in Paris right now. But it, like, the word stops and then it completes a second later. So I feel like I'm going to be able to go through and edit this, just, like, cut out the seconds between, like, where you stop talking and it just, like, won't be noticeable. People will be listening back and they'll be like, what. What is this guy talking about when. [00:47:41] Speaker B: We talk about how we're editing it and then people will be even more. [00:47:44] Speaker A: Well, I left in the part last week where we did two takes celebrating the winner of the London major. But, yeah, let's. Let's move on because this kind of leads a little bit into our next. Next subject, which is just culture. And the reason I bring this to the table is because I just watch Evo. I've been actually really getting into fighting games. I've always kind of liked them, been on the fringes of enjoying fighting games and got some cool stories from going to, like, Perth Iron King arena. But watching Evo, the thing that jumped out at me is, like, the culture is so different to everything I've experienced in, like, every other sport. I think Rocket league is pretty good, at least what I experienced in Perth. But, like, league of legends, like, every. The toxicity is legendary. But in. At Evo, like, there's the dudes on stage. Like, I watched the finals of the guilty gear strive, which, like, by the way, like, stop listening to us, pause the podcast, go watch the guilty gear strike top six because it's one of the best esports events I've ever seen. But, like, when. When the. The person who wins that, which spoilers is nitro. It's been a few weeks. Like, wins that, the first thing he does is he, like, puts his head in his hands, and his opponent is just, like, right there with him, hands on his shoulders, like, congratulating him. There's no bad blood. Both guys are, like, so supportive of each other, and it's like, I just, like, want to see more of that in, like, every esport and, like, especially League of Legends, because that's where I live, and we just not getting it. So what do we have to do? [00:49:10] Speaker B: I mean, I feel League of Legends is a bad one to call for, and I. Not to play into stereotypes, but it does feel like League of Legends players, especially at the pro level, are some of the most socially awkward stage presence people in existence. [00:49:28] Speaker A: Like, I don't know. I don't. [00:49:30] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, they could try that, I'm sure, and maybe it happens more behind the scenes, but I don't know, because, like, again, not to be the guy who disagrees with you, while good sportsmanship in situations like that is fantastic to see, I don't think it should come at the expense, though. Someone who's really passionate and heartbroken on their loss or. Yeah, well, like, I don't know. I feel. I just like seeing emotion come from players. And that's both in esports and in traditional sports. I like, I don't know. I feel like to use f one as an example. With the most recent race that happened, teammates finished one, two, and the driver who finished second place, like, yeah, he's in the interview, he's congratulated his teammate, but at that same time, you saw he was not happy. He didn't like losing. And they're on the same team, so it's, you know. Yeah, I don't necessarily think being upset or angry is toxic, is where I'm. [00:50:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I don't like. That's definitely a bad example of, like, toxicity. I also think that there's a thing, toxicity in, like, pub, game, solo, queue, whatever you want to call it that straight up comes from, like, a thing that we probably should have talked a lot more with, with jai about. But yes, he's the guy who would know a lot. But, like, I've heard people talk about this, where they come from, like, a sports background, they start picking, picking up, like, a, like, esports. And, like, they notice that there's a very different culture around, like, traditional sports and esports, where people who come in from esports don't have that background in, like, playing a traditional sport. So they're not accustomed to winning or losing. And losing is the important part because, you know, losing is, like, when you lose, you gotta, you gotta, like, take it correctly, because otherwise you're just going to hate yourself every single time. And that's, like, not productive. And that's how people end up, like, you know, baby raging, because that their team isn't playing optimally. [00:51:25] Speaker B: Like, can I interject? And I. Would a large part of that be because most traditional sports that people get involved in have a coach and have practice and structure, whereas with esports, at a lot of these titles, like, maybe not in the esports team environment when you're going in and competing, but at the casual public level, it's just log on play. You're not getting coaching, you're not getting that structure, so you're not learning the skills to sort of handle those wins and losses. And I'm going to throw it right here. This is why high school esports is so important, because you can then get that environment. You can get the coaching, you can get the life lessons. And that's why I'm a huge, huge proponent and a huge fan of esports as a high school thing. [00:52:10] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think. I think high school esports is only going to grow as well. I know there's a lot of schools looking at it right now as a way to connect to students who aren't, you know, the sporty kids who are going to go play touch on the oval at lunch or stuff like that. And I know for me, I, when I was very young, I was a soccer player initially, football for anybody outside of Australia. I've been getting a lot of that this week. Every time I say soccer, I'm working with mostly a british team, so I'm eating a lot of violence. [00:52:44] Speaker A: Have you received? [00:52:45] Speaker C: I got two today. So my producer wasn't happy with me and I just started taking. [00:52:53] Speaker B: Yeah, but then tell them to cook a real meal that doesn't involve, like, toxic green pea mash and then you win the argument. [00:53:00] Speaker C: True, but yeah, I started initially playing football, and I played that until I was around eight. And then, you know, life happens. I ended up not being able to play it any further past that, but just that early development of being able to play a team sport, understand what it was to be part of a team. Once I started playing games and playing esports, I understood how to lose gracefully, how to still think like, understood that across the screen, that is another person. They are putting in just as much effort as I am to win this game, and they may have just performed better than me. It's something that a lot of athletes see. You see, at the Tokyo Games, you had these two high jumpers who were going back and forth to the point that the officials just said, look, we can't raise this high jump bar any higher. Do you guys just want to both get a gold medal? And like, the players, the athletes had to decide, and they just instantly looked at each other and just started hugging each other because all they understood how important it was not just to themselves, to. [00:54:15] Speaker A: It's a huge achievement to get that. [00:54:16] Speaker C: Gold medal, but for the other person as well. You see it every single time as any sort of olympic medal ceremony. They're happy to be up there together. They know how hard everybody, every single person, they've been there. I've been watching, like, some of my athletes that I'm working, like, watching right now won't actually do their finals race until next end of the week. They won't do it until Sunday this week. And they've been sitting there training since I was here last Saturday. There's two weeks that they've been competing, watching each other, talking to each other. They understand how much effort everybody has put in just to get here, let alone how much they're putting in this week to train to get ready and then how much effort they put in on the course. Right. Understanding that, and I think it comes with the anonymity sometimes of esports. Understanding that on the other side of the screen, that is another person who is putting in just as much effort is something that high school is going to be able to deal with. And it comes to, I think one thing with things like Evo compared to something like League of Legends is sometimes it can only take one person to kind of derail the rest of the team. Something like Evo, where it's usually one on one, you have a lot more camaraderie between that one person that you're opposing to, where something like League of Legends, you can have players within their own team in fighting, even at a professional level, you see, you know, players just not working together at all and you see their season decline and then, you know, there'll be a roster shake up the next split because somebody doesn't want to play with somebody anymore. Once you start building bigger and bigger teams, you start running into more of those interpersonal issues that everyone will experience it sometimes. Sometimes it's okay just to not get along with somebody. And traditional sport sometimes has a very good way of dealing with that. They have coaches, they have things like that to kind of navigate those issues, which is something that I've had to deal with before as a coach, as a team manager. Dealing with some of those issues can improve performance, not dealing with them. Can I heavily impact your performance? If you look at LEagUe of legends esports compared to TFT esports, the Vegas land that they had at the end of last year, the environment of that entire land had, I think there was around 4000 people from all across the world, people who either just applied themselves, who were high ranked or promoted through their ranks on ladders previously Orlando or previous world's performances for TFT, 4000 people all playing TFT in this one arena, in this massive four day event where half of them got eliminated the first day, everyone was still there. Day four, cheering on for the final because they understood just to be there and experiencing it together, how big that was for everybody. I think that's something that esports struggles with because we're not all in the same room the entire time. The environment of actually enjoying those spaces is kind of lost. [00:57:23] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Like, and it like to. I think we talked about needing to explain things at the start of the show. TFT teamfight tactic is the auto battler. That's League of Legends, and it's kind of the same environment as Evo, which, just to recap, is actually the biggest fighting game tournament of the calendar. And, like, those are all, like, one on one things, and it's kind of their open invite, which is definitely a different thing. But I guess my. My feeling is that in League of Legends in particular, and probably, like, counter strike has a bit of this as well. From what I've heard. It feels like it's this culture that kind of bubbles up from the. From the solo queue, and then it, like, even at the. I was casting it. I lose. Used the term loosely, casting a game yesterday, which, like, one of the players was like, shit talking there. One of the other players in, like, one of my cocastrs DM's. And I'm like, man, like, that's just. It's, like, not okay. And if you behave like that in a traditional sports setting, then, like, you would. You just wouldn't be invited to play. Like. [00:58:32] Speaker B: Like, I mean, it depends on the level of the. Of the event, because, again, like, I would. I look at especially the heavy contact sports treasure things that are said there, but they're also. Those things are said comes with the understanding that it's left on the field. [00:58:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:48] Speaker B: Very rarely, you will see beefs, um, be taken off the field. But, like, also, you know, sometimes punch ups happen in traditional sports, as well, and I get to see the big esports punch up happen. [00:59:01] Speaker A: Oh, I'd love to say it, actually. [00:59:04] Speaker B: Are we just saying how we don't want to. [00:59:05] Speaker A: No. Yeah, like, I. I'm thinking about it now. No, I'm actually in support of toxicity in esports culture, because that would be an awkward ass fight to watch. [00:59:14] Speaker B: Exactly. Can you go back to what I said before? League of Legends players awkward states presence. Let's see them throw their hands. [00:59:20] Speaker C: I think. [00:59:21] Speaker A: I'm not. I'm definitely not. Sorry. Go on. Go on. [00:59:23] Speaker C: Tom, I think it's interesting when you talk about toxicity, because you look at something like the cod majors that were just happening and the way that the players were interacting with each other. They were swearing at each other, they were kind of debating each other, but at the same. You look at that, and it's. [00:59:37] Speaker A: But it's like banter, right? [00:59:39] Speaker C: It's banter. Yeah. And I think that's a big thing, which, like, maybe some people within a lot of esports communities, they. They see the traditional sports side, and there's always that band between the players. You'll have players swearing at each other on the field, and we can bring that into esports. But again, it's the keeping it on the field of play, not taking it off the field of play, not taking it into your solo environments, not taking it into, you know, game down the street. Like, you're just gonna go play a game of football on the street. Yeah, go on. [01:00:13] Speaker A: Yeah. It kind of feels like I definitely was about to say sorry. So what happens is you keep lagging. I think you're finished. But. So I I definitely was. I'm glad you brought up cs go because that's actually where I was literally gonna go. I was gonna bring up, like, Stewie. Stewie two k dude subbed in for g two, and he was as fiery as he's ever been. But, like, back in the day, he was the guy, like, yelling across the stage. As soon, like, every single time he connected a headshot, he'd be like, like, what the fuck you got? Like, across the stage. Like, knowing that he was getting in people's heads. And, like, that sort of stuff is expected in sports, but I think where it comes from, and this is probably going back to the point of, like, high school being important, having, like, foundations and foundational structures and coaches, is like, I'm going to talk about something that day nine talked about in his time as, like, a Starcraft competitor, where he was coming in as, like, this. This nerd who'd never played sports, and, like, he found a thing that he was good at, and he'd attached his identity to that, like, right away. So his whole, like, world became, I have to be good at this game. And if I'm not, I'm absolute garbage. And that's, like, not healthy. And that's unfortunately, I think, what a lot of people live by in esports. I know, like, I've had that phase when I was playing League of Legends at first. Like, I wanted to be so good at it, and when I wasn't, I would just, like, get so upset. And, like, I think that's kind of what's happening a lot with these players where, like, maybe as they're heading towards the level where they're kind of getting pro, like, it's. It's. You're attaching this identity to it, and you haven't really begun that foundational skill of, like, handling losing or handling being in a competitive environment. So it's just kind of cascading into this, like, wall of toxicity that gets unleashed. [01:02:03] Speaker B: So here's the thing, though. You know what sports I've noticed that don't have that kind of strange level of toxicity, but also doesn't really have the coaching, because it's like that individual sport. [01:02:16] Speaker A: All right, I'm curious. [01:02:17] Speaker B: Let's bring it right back around to what we're talking about at the start. Skateboarding. [01:02:21] Speaker A: Okay? [01:02:22] Speaker B: Skateboarding at the competition level, and maybe it's different at the amateur level. Maybe the amateur level, people get super aggro and things go crazy, but it feels like skateboarding and to a lesser extent, snowboarding. Everyone is friends with everyone. They're all competing high five, celebrating every successes and all that, and, like, they're either really good at masking it. I don't think that's the case. I just think there's something in the nature about it being an extreme score, and maybe it's because everyone's kind of risking a lot more with every trick that they pull and how they're all pushing each other to go bigger. You see it same thing with, like, bmx and, like, the trials and the trail runs and that. It just feels like those types of, like, x games sports where the level of camaraderie and, like, sportsmanship, it seems like the least toxic thing out there. [01:03:14] Speaker A: I don't know, like it. I kind of. I feel like it would be really hard go. [01:03:19] Speaker C: I think that comes a little bit from before these were sports, before people were competing on them. Like, skateboarding was a community thing. It was something you were accepted into. It was something that, you know, you went out, you found a skate park, people at that skate park would either accept you or not, and then, you know, go find a different. So was, which is what esports started as, but then as kind of weapon was alluding to just because. Because it's not seeing a person face to face. Because there's the anonymity of being, you know, behind a screen. I can say what I want to and get away with it because nobody knows this is actually me. It happens all over the Internet. People kind of think that they can get away with it and therefore just go for it. You know, they're having a bad game. They get annoyed. They just kind of want to bring everybody else down to their level, which is where you run into toxic environments within solo queue. You run into people being, you know, going back and forth a little bit and not being as accepting. But then, you know, you walk behind stage at some of these larger esport events, and you see players from opposite teams who have just been trash talking each other on stage, you know, give each other a high five, sacred game, all of that kind of stuff. Like, there is that community there behind the scenes. Sometimes it's just played up on stage on the field of play. When the emotions get high, high, you're going to play it up, obviously. [01:04:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I like, I definitely think that's present at the top level and it's more sort of that lower tier that I'm. I'm like, kind of looking at and like, going back to Evo and just fighting games as well. Like, I've been to local, uh, local community events. I mentioned earth hanging arena. And, like, the atmosphere at fighting game events is like nothing else. If you've never been to a local fighting game event, like, just to watch, it's worth going because, like, the camaraderie is there. You've got this whole community of people who are there just like, because they love it and you just. You don't feel that anywhere else. I had this one time, right, have to tell the story. It's the coolest shit that ever happened in esports. So I'm at Perth Iron King arena. They run fighting game events in Perth, as the name suggests. But, like, I'm with one of the top guys in Tekken and he points out this kid coming in as, like, everyone's coming in with their controllers, getting set up. And he's like, watch this guy. He's up, he's on the up and up. This guy's up and coming and he plays. Brian, one of the top three guys in the state at the time, was also a Brian player. And through some miracle, they end up meeting in the lower bracket. And this guy who's like, not won anything big yet. He's never like, come out with a huge result. But everyone's like, this guy's. This guy's pretty good. Everyone stopped playing their other games and everyone just crowded around this one tv. Watch these two guys. And the new guy, the Brian player, got blitz. It was like, not even close. Three straight sets. But every single time that guy mounted any sort of offense, everyone was screaming, everyone went crazy. And it was just like the coolest atmosphere at the end. They all like, they hugged, everyone was crying. Like, it was so sick. [01:06:42] Speaker B: I like any, any fighting game community that isn't smash seems like a good time. [01:06:47] Speaker A: Yeah, Smash seems to be a bit gross. I've heard some tales of the first smash scene. They've been banned from all venues. Then you can count. Yeah, it's been a bit rough. Maybe one day we'll get dawn on the show to tell us a bit about the smash scene and being a bunch of grandmas. Dawn, not part of Dawn's all over the place. You just. [01:07:09] Speaker B: Every. Every esports event. Dawn is there. [01:07:12] Speaker A: Sorry. At space jump as well. Just always there. [01:07:17] Speaker B: Just there. [01:07:18] Speaker C: I think the other thing we lurking, waiting to games is fighting games as a game in general have been out for a lot longer. You think about early fighting games coming out mid eighties, nineties, that they've been around for that extra 2030 years compared to a lot of the esport titles that we're now seeing. So they've had time, as you kind of said, to generationally build that community. You have people in their forties, fifties who were playing street fighter as young adults, as teenagers, and playing Tekken and all that kind of stuff as it was coming out. And now they've grown up into it, which is why the community feels a lot more like a community, because there's that multi generational part of it. You look at something like league, which is getting up there. It's ten years now, but you're only really just starting to kind of have almost the second generation of players come in who either started playing really young and are young prodigies who have been playing for years now and coming into a competitive age, or you're starting to have people who have been playing for a long time and maybe slowing down, starting to have kids who they're going to start, you know, start enjoying sharing those experiences with. If it's still something that they love. I think Swarm is something. The new game mode that just come out and leave that. So bullet Heaven game mode, it's something that has brought players back and been interested in the league ip and it might get them to start playing again. There's been a lot of different things on Reddit about players coming back after five, six years break to really kind of want to play League of Legends again, which is really cool. [01:09:04] Speaker A: Hey, okay. [01:09:06] Speaker B: Can I. [01:09:06] Speaker A: It's pretty fun, actually. [01:09:07] Speaker B: I. [01:09:08] Speaker A: You're not a fan? [01:09:09] Speaker B: I'm not a fan. [01:09:10] Speaker A: Not a fan of the bullet hole? [01:09:11] Speaker B: Not a fan of bullet heaven, though. Like, I bounced off vampire survivors pretty quick. I bounced off swarm pretty quick. That's not my genre. [01:09:17] Speaker A: Yeah, fair enough. I've played like a couple of. A couple of games of it. I was. I'm definitely not like, addicted to it like a lot of people are, but I can see the value. [01:09:25] Speaker B: So, Tom, did you play on the flight over to France? [01:09:28] Speaker C: I didn't play on the flight. I unlocked extreme mode in the 24 hours that I could play it. I sadly. [01:09:36] Speaker A: Can you actually play any games while you're in? [01:09:38] Speaker C: Well, this is THe thing. I did transfer my league of Legends, my main league of legends account to EU West. I probably have stable enough Internet running off my phone that I could play swarm. I just haven't had an afternoon off yet. Tonight's my first afternoon off, which is why I've. Which is why we're here recording this, but. [01:09:57] Speaker A: And you're spending it here. [01:09:58] Speaker C: Yeah. After this, it's go do some laundry and then swarm the rest of the night and then probably go and grab some dinner with some people afterwards. We'll see. [01:10:08] Speaker A: And then Eu west. Solo queue. I want. I want you to dive into EU. I want to hear the stories. [01:10:15] Speaker C: I have ten days off from the 12 August to the 22 August. I'm going to spend a couple of days up in. Up in the Netherlands and then probably like five or six days back in Paris before I start work. I've dedicated that time to seeing how far I could get in like five days of just pure solo queue in EU west. [01:10:37] Speaker A: Oh, man. [01:10:37] Speaker C: I want to say I'll come back with stories. Either there'll be good stories or they'll be really bad. We'll see, because I'll be rusty. We'll get you back on just an hour of me talking about the horrors of EU west solo queue. [01:10:53] Speaker A: You can just tell us about eus solo queue. Yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. So we're going to move on because we've got one more subject to quickly touch on before we tie this one up. And it's a bit of an update on previous story that we talked about last week. It's a big one. Everyone's probably murmuring about it. It's the APAC league. It's happening next year. Of course it's going to be a combined league, in theory, between BC's PCs, LJN, LCO. I've got the story open. But. But the thing that I wanted to talk about, it's big, is that we now know the makeup of this league. And they have said four partner teams, two invited guest teams, one guest team from PCs playoffs, just the one. And one guest team from the BC's playoffs. So what I'm hearing there, and this is the big thing, is no guaranteed spots for the LCO at this international competition, which is now going to be our feed into worlds and MSI and every other international event. It kind of feels a bit rough, right? [01:11:59] Speaker B: Yeah. But they still. Like when you even on that article, they are still talking like, the LCO playoffs. They're trying to promote the LCO channel. So I feel like they're still hoping or expecting the Oce is going to get through. [01:12:12] Speaker A: Yeah. I have a lot of faith in ground zero to do some damage but the guest team thing is a bit. It doesn't really specify what you have to do to get there from the PCs playoffs. [01:12:24] Speaker B: I wonder if like the guest team situation is like in case Oce bombs out or like any of these out, they just invite one in. [01:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah. The other thing the partner team I think is this is all just like, you can just buy a slot and they open those slots out. So I have a decent feeling that we're going to see like, like Predator or someone buy in like someone from the dota scene who's got like a decent amount of cash. But like I don't know how many Oce players any of these teams are going to be picking up. [01:12:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I have. [01:13:00] Speaker C: Perhaps we might see hard. Yeah, I have a feeling we might see one o currently Osteen, one or two perhaps at least consider buying one of those slots. Whether or not, you know, how much the slots are going for, how many teams going to contest those partnered slots is up in the air. I think the bigger thing that I'm interested in, which hasn't really been spoken about yet and probably won't until towards the end of the first split, is this is meant to have a promotion relegation system. What is that actually going to look like? Is it going to be kind of, you know, if the PCs as a region is moving to tier two, right, because it's meant to be now AIPAC is the t one, PCs, BC's kind of moved to tier two, LJL. Does that push, you know, LGLco even lower to like a tier three or do we all qualify equally? So, you know, the top two teams from PCs, the top two teams from VC's, the top two teams from LCO, top two teams from LJL all qualify up into this relegation system where it's a little bit more even perhaps to move up into those guest slots or those invited team slots. Is it going to be all four of those two invited guests, those two guest teams from the playoffs that are up for relegation? I think that's something that I'm really interested in seeing. Kind of not what split one looks like, but what split three and four looks like. That's really where we're going to start to see how the future of Os League of Legends is going to start to look. Especially with things like the ODT, the Oli starting to actually develop newer talent. And I think this is something, no matter what you're doing, whether it be sport, whether it be even just a work environment, having somebody who wants your job, who, if, you know, there's only, you know, there's only eight teams in LCO, that's 40 players who have starting slots. Knowing that there's a hundred players sitting directly below you who want your slot, want your job, can sometimes actually boost your own confidence and boost your own, you know, how much you want to go forward and try to continue to contest that slot. A really good example of this is way back in the LCS, C nine was in a bit of a slump and their coach reapered, just benched three of their players for the academy team because the academy guys were performing well and the main starters just weren't performing. They were taking it easy. So he just benched them for the academy players for three weeks. They think they were one and three in that time or something like that. But then when the start, he's like, okay, are you guys ready to come back? And when they came back, they ended up winning the entire split because they had this drive, which they kind of just lost because they were taking it easy. They thought they were guaranteed. And having this new pool of players that's starting to come up into the LCO is gonna hopefully boost the region as a whole. As it. It was getting a little stale and now a lot of these new players are starting to come in. We're no longer just like, sending our best players over to North America. We're now starting to keep them home, develop them more, and then move them up into those better slots, which will be interesting to see what happens in the next two or three spots. [01:16:34] Speaker A: Fully agree. So pump. Yeah. Okay, that's the lag again. [01:16:41] Speaker B: That was a chunky one. [01:16:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm just gonna cut out all of the space between the words and you'll sound completely normal. So what you're saying is pumpkin wins worlds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:16:55] Speaker B: I'm okay with this reality, actually. It's a good one. [01:16:59] Speaker A: I don't know who, who goes like, Shoji Yogen's also an ad carry. [01:17:08] Speaker C: It's just playing ADC's mid lane now. That's the metal. [01:17:13] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, of course, because it's ABC meta. Yeah. I think the, um, like, the other thing that's going to happen here that, like, to your point of, like, people moving up from ODT and Oli and just, again, in the interest of explaining things, that's the league that Max and Tom and myself work on, which is the, essentially the tier three now which is like all the upcoming players who want to go into the LCO from Oli, which is inter varsity as well. I think we're also going to see a bunch of players. I've heard behind the scenes that there's some players who are just straight up checked out, and I'm curious to see when more pressure is applied from below. Like, some of them will step up and some of them, I think, will just break and it's going to be sad. But I think eventually, if we just sort of clear that away, then we are just going to be stronger. Because we talked about this on the last episode. You can see that sometimes in the tier one in LCO, it's been a bunch of players just swapping back and forth and they're just kind of there. [01:18:13] Speaker C: And it's something that you kind of see in the LCS right now. They've had years of just swapping players back and forth, and over the last three splits they've had all of this new talent come up from their academy system and, you know, they were leagues behind everybody in Europe. Now they're matching teams in Europe quite consistently at international events. And I think that mainly comes from this new generation of players who are hungry for success, are hungry to, you know, they started playing when they were a lot younger. They've always wanted this. They finally got it and they're going to prove that they deserved to be there and replace some of the old guard that they looked up to who are just starting to check themselves out. [01:18:55] Speaker A: A little bit for sure. Max? [01:19:00] Speaker B: Yes. [01:19:00] Speaker A: Any thoughts on this before we wrap it up before we get out of here? [01:19:06] Speaker B: I know this whole thing is to explain our thoughts, but I think you guys kind of hit the nail on the head with that. I do want to go back in because I thought you're going to attack me more on my audacious claim. No, I don't think Yoshin's overrated. [01:19:19] Speaker A: Dude is a monster. I can tell straight away you're joking. [01:19:23] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know if, like, sometimes people hear that stuff, they don't know I'm joking and then I don't know. [01:19:30] Speaker A: I have to be there. [01:19:33] Speaker C: Dude is a monster when his team gets. When his team plays around him well, when his team gets to practice and not do uni assignments before a semi. [01:19:41] Speaker B: Final, he just didn't show up in that one series where I thought he was going to show up. [01:19:46] Speaker A: And I'm part of the only player who was playing in the ODT semi finals. Yojin is the ad carry player who was on Mammoth, by the way, for those not know. [01:19:55] Speaker B: And he is a very good player. [01:19:58] Speaker A: And also was, I think he is technically on an LCO roster now. I just can't remember which one. I think he's only seen one game or so and should see more because mechanically, absolute beast. [01:20:10] Speaker B: Watch the LCO. Watch ODT, watch all of these things. [01:20:15] Speaker A: What show? [01:20:16] Speaker B: Please watch them. [01:20:17] Speaker C: Watch RLCs. Just for Max. [01:20:21] Speaker A: It's over. Is there gonna be a stream for Echo? [01:20:24] Speaker B: Probably. I don't know what it is, and I don't know if I want to promote it yet. [01:20:27] Speaker A: Okay, yeah, let's find out whatever maxes is on. I mean, I think that's. This is a pretty good show. 120 free topics covered. We've done it pretty well. Any closing thoughts on anything that we've covered today, lads? [01:20:43] Speaker B: Uh, okay. Yeah. Um. [01:20:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Hit me up. No. Okay. Okay. You've baited me so hard. [01:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. On purpose. Yeah, no, I do have closing costs, maybe. [01:20:54] Speaker A: Yeah, don't do anything. [01:20:56] Speaker B: I just, you know, I want esports to succeed on a global level. I feel like I'm getting repetitive with how much I'm talking about how, hey, with summarizing, ideal rocket league is made for the global scene, and, yeah, I'm just waiting for that big network to give it a chance. And at that same token, hey, you know what? I also want to get more into traditional sports, so, you know, baseball season. Hit me up. [01:21:20] Speaker A: Hit this guy up. Because he used to play baseball. Right. We didn't talk about it when we talked about. Okay, yeah, but in a different lifetime. [01:21:28] Speaker B: Well, it. [01:21:30] Speaker A: It doesn't mean you don't have to play baseball. [01:21:32] Speaker B: It was on a baseball team. I was there. I played the baseball. I think I was the worst player on the team, and I wouldn't call myself a baseball player. [01:21:42] Speaker A: It's kind of like how I was a basketball player, but I wouldn't. Yeah, yeah, I get it. [01:21:47] Speaker B: Like, I did much better at touch football. I'm a much better surfer. All the other sports I played, I was better at than at baseball, but baseball was still probably my favorite. [01:21:56] Speaker A: We need to go surfing. I really want to learn. [01:21:58] Speaker B: Yeah, you should. Everyone should learn how to surf. That's actually. That's my final statement. That's my final thought. Everybody should learn how to surface and what, surfing at the Olympics. I know it's not what Tom is working at, but the fact that they use. Oh, yeah, french polynesia. That's France. Let's go to Tahiti for surfing. [01:22:12] Speaker C: I wish I was working in Tahiti. [01:22:22] Speaker B: Surfing today, and. Oh, my gosh, like, how far women surfing has come over the past 15 years. It's insane. [01:22:31] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Which reminds me, watch the oliw as well. The pathfinder league. [01:22:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:22:40] Speaker A: That's on Wednesdays. That's gonna be cool. [01:22:42] Speaker B: It is. [01:22:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Tom, closing thoughts before we wrap it up. Put this thing out in the world. [01:22:50] Speaker C: Yeah. I think the biggest thing that I just want to say as a closing thought is it's gonna be really interesting to see what happens. Overdose. The next twelve to 16 months of esport in general, from things like the IOC announcing esport Olympics, from the way that tournament organizers and larger scale productions are changing their environments, I think we're getting towards the end of the mythical esports winter from an organizational point of view. Organizations are working out that they can't spend all the money in the world and how to spend it smarter. So hopefully, it means good things are on the horizon. As more people start to get involved, as more industries start to look at esport as closer to a traditional sport kind of mentality, it's going to be really fun to see. [01:23:49] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. I have to agree. Like, the esports winter point is definitely a big one where it does feel like we've been a bit of downturn, and I now with more interest and more money, even if it's coming from places where I'm not necessarily super comfortable with the Olympics thing, I have my thoughts on it, but I will agree that that is super cool, and hopefully it gets more eyes on it, and hopefully I would like to be able to do ODT if I don't go any further in my career. I never make it to the LCO. I never make it to anywhere overseas. I would like to be able to do ODT for a job, and that's like. Like, getting more eyes on esports would make that happen. So, like, grassroots being stronger means that people can just have jobs in. It won't even be grassroots anymore, but, like, people can just have jobs in esports. We can have stability, and I fully agree, but let's wrap it up there. You think? Let's. [01:24:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:24:44] Speaker A: Yeah. It's been an hour and a half. It's actually 1241, except for where it's like, what? 04:00 p.m. yeah. [01:24:53] Speaker C: 05:00 p.m. i'm chill. [01:24:55] Speaker A: 05:00 p.m. you're totally fine. Yeah. Like, we. We had to get you on the show while you're in Paris, and, like, I'm glad we did, because this has been sick, dude. [01:25:03] Speaker B: I should have actually cracked my champagne. Like, proper champagne. [01:25:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, can you get. You can get non alcoholic champagne, right? It's just sparkling wine. [01:25:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But, like, apparently, proper champagne has to be from champagne. [01:25:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:18] Speaker C: So that's a. Everything is sparkling wine. Unless it is actually from the region of champagne in France, which Max got gifted an actual champagne. [01:25:28] Speaker B: Yes. [01:25:29] Speaker A: For his house warming somebody naughty. [01:25:31] Speaker C: So you can actually. [01:25:34] Speaker B: I was planning on popping it when Piastri won his first race in Formula one, which has happened. But it was such an anticlimactic, like, terrible race that I chose not to pop it. [01:25:46] Speaker A: I think you pop it when it's the celebration for Tom being back because you get to not do less work. Yeah. You get the cast, maybe. Although we got. We got to get you on the ODC. Oli. [01:25:59] Speaker B: I might be able to do pre shows, but it also feels like the most chaotic point. I don't know. Like, I just don't see it happening. [01:26:08] Speaker A: We'll figure something out. But that's the conversation for another day. We're gonna sign off here. This has been an episode two. Thank you so much to Tom for joining us, all the way from Paris, working on the Olympics. Very cool shit. And thank you, Max, for sitting through another episode, and, well, you contributed everything that we needed, and it's been awesome. And hopefully we can do a. That sounded. That sounded like flame. I don't know why. [01:26:37] Speaker B: Yeah, Max, you don't. [01:26:40] Speaker A: Max, you suck. Yeah. Just. I actually sing your praises to, like, everyone. Like, when I'm not talking directly to you, you're, like, the best person in the world. I tell everyone, like, it's the best play by podcaster in the country, and I goddamn aim it. But for some reason, when I talked to you, pike. Okay, yeah. Pike is just as good. That's actually really tough, because it was always just you. Now I'm getting sidetracked. And now. Now the thing is. [01:27:07] Speaker B: Here's the difference. Pike. Actually, people saw more in pike than what they saw on me, and I think I see it, too. So, like, that. [01:27:11] Speaker A: No. No, you can't. You can't do that. You are just as good. Both of you do different things. We've had this conversation before, but we're getting sidetracked. We are going to leave it there. We will hopefully be back with a more regular schedule. Maybe we need to adjust it. The plan is bi weekly. Whenever our sister show, which is oceanic gaming radio, is not doing their thing. I believe they uploaded last week. So it's high time we did it and this thing should be out this week. It's the 30th of 7th, so catch us in a couple of weeks. Hopefully we'll see what we can do. And yeah, please check out our system show. By the way, oceanic gaming radio OGR show. Kat and Grizpon are great show and they talk about all the general gaming news, so it's worth checking out. Also, their patreon helps us get access to this platform and the platform we use to upload stuff. So if you want to support us, do it by supporting them. And all that stuff is going to be changing in the near future to reflect that we're part of the whole thing. Yeah, I've spoken enough and we will leave it there. Thank you so much. We've been in and we'll catch you in a couple of weeks. Peace.